Standoff devices have been developed as attachments to guns to aid in personal and home protection as non-lethal deterrents, or for tactical use by police or military personnel. Standoff devices are capable of providing close-quarters defensive protection when used as a non-firing close-quarters weapon. Additionally, such devices are used to aid in breaching, when a gun is used to gain entry past doors, gates, or other barriers. In this mode of use, a standoff device provides distance from the end of the gun muzzle to the target barrier, in order to keep a user from firing with the muzzle too close to the target and causing damage to the gun barrel and/or injury to the user.
Current standoff devices, however, suffer from several shortcomings. Gun components often vary in construction (i.e. thread pitch, etc.) from manufacturer to manufacturer and from model to model, and a different standoff device is typically required for attachment to any gun made by a different manufacture or even for different series or models of guns made by the same manufacturer. Thus, a specific, custom-tailored standoff device is likely required for any given model and manufacture of gun, requiring a gun owner with several guns to purchase several separate standoff devices matched specifically to each gun.
Additionally, a standoff device (e.g. one that is not designed as part of the barrel) must be long enough to extend beyond the gun barrel to be functional for either close-quarters self-defense or breaching purposes. A typical standoff device is designed to attach to the distal end of a shotgun's stock magazine tube or to the barrel by permanent attachment during manufacturing, by welding, or by varying threaded components. Such a standoff device may not be able to function as a magazine tube extension with all gun models, and a user of such a standoff device may not be unable to obtain the additional ammunition capacity desired. Alternatively, such a standoff device may not allow for the magazine tube extension to operate without the standoff device attached. Thus, for uses where the standoff may not be desired, a user would have to use the magazine tube extension with the standoff device. Furthermore, simply adding a magazine tube extension and connecting the standoff device to the magazine tube extension defeats the purpose of providing close-quarters self-defense because the long length of the standoff device renders the gun unwieldy for any close-quarters self-defense or breaching maneuvers when a magazine tube extension is also used. Thus, a user may often be forced to choose between a manageable length at which the standoff device extends from the gun and extra ammunition capacity.